1 PREPARING TO PRESENT

1.1Breathing technique

 Take in a couple of deep breaths before you start. Inhale through the nose and
out through the mouth. Aim to breathe out for as long as possible to help release
any hidden tension in the body.
 Breathe deeply – from the abdomen, keeping the chest and shoulders relaxed.
 Aim to complete to full breaths in the 20 seconds before you present to calm any
nerves.
 Pant to the sound of Ha, Ha, Ha, with your hand on the abdomen to feel your
breath starting from there.
 Pace your breath to the end of the sentence. This will help you maintain the
energy in the voice to the end of the sentence and avoid dropping off the last few
words.

1.2 Relaxation techniques

 To help to control the tension in your hands, stretch and clench your hands to
create tension and the shake them out to release the tension.
 Roll your shoulders backwards and forwards to loosen them up.
 Lift your shoulders to try and touch your ears. Hold this position, note the tension
and then release them.
 Take a walk before you present. Movement is always a good way to feel more
relaxed.
 When you are nervous, your face can often appear blank and even stern. To relax
tension in the jaw and throat, take a big yawn opening your mouth as wide as
possible.
 Imagine chewing a very large toffee to really exaggerate the jaw movement and
release tension in the facial muscles.
1.3Psychological techniques

 Negative thoughts lead to negative feelings. Reverse your thought process and
switch your mind-set to positive thoughts, to create more positive feelings to your
presentation.
 To do this, give yourself why your audience should listen to you. Before you
present say these three reasons to yourself to block out any interference from
negative thoughts.
 ‘Act as if…’ is an acting technique to help create greater conviction in a role. The
brain finds it difficult to distinguish between imagination and reality. If you ‘Act as
if…’ you have just delivered a great presentation…you are going to help your
audience…you are feeling very confident …, etc, you are more likely to convey
these positive vibes to your audience.
 Also when you ‘Act as if’, you are taking on a role rather than just being yourself.
This helps reduce any feeling of exposure.
 Positive visualisation is also an effective way to achieve a positive mental attitude
towards your presentation. Visualise yourself giving a good presentation – your
ideal image. Ask yourself

o How did I look whilst I was presenting?

o How did my voice sound?
o How was I feeling?

 As the brain finds it difficult to distinguish between strong imagination and reality,
by engaging with the three most powerful senses below, you have used your
imagination to kid your brain that you have actually completed a successful
presentation.

o Visual
o Auditory
o Kinaesthetic

 When you come to do the presentation, it will feel like a deja-vu situation – that
you have already done it very well.

14 Warm up exercises

The following routines should be practised on a daily basis, failing that it is essential
to follow the routine before each presentation you have to deliver. This warm up
routine will allow your body and your voice to be in a fully prepared state and ready to
perform to it’s maximum potential and enable you to make your presentation dynamic
and powerful.

 Shake your left hand vigorously from the wrist, shake it as if you have a ‘post-it’
note stuck to your fingers. Shake your hand for about 45-60 seconds. Then
repeat with your right hand. Then shake both hands again for about 45-60
seconds.
 Stand on one leg and shake the foot of the other leg, once again be quite
vigorous. Shake for about 30 seconds. Then repeat with the other foot.

 Now shake both hands and one foot, then shake both hands and the other foot,
jump from foot to foot shaking each and both hands for about 30 seconds. Then
stop and recover. You SHOULD have worked up quite a sweat and feel a little it
breathless, you will also feel energised and ready to face your audience.

 Stand in a relaxed position, with your feet slightly apart (approximately 15cms).
Lock your knees, hold for 5 seconds then release them. Repeat and hold for 5
seconds. And repeat a third time.

 Chew as if you are chewing a big piece of toffee. Chew with your mouth open,
chew for 30 seconds. Now chew on one side of your mouth for 30 seconds now
chew on the other side.

 Chew with you mouth closed.

 Pucker up your lips and blow kisses. Make the ‘kisses’ as loud as you can, no
small noises allowed. Blow 30 kisses as fast as you can.

 Now you have no teeth, curl your lips over your teeth and make sucking noises,
again do thirty sucks and be as loud as you can be.

 Then make 30 kisses again. Then 30 no teeth sucks and then another 30 kisses.

 Your mouth and face should start to feel ‘sore’ or at least like it has had a good
workout.

 Relax your lips. Pretend to be a horse, in other words blow the air through your
relaxed to make horsey sounds. Remember don’t blow too hard because you’ll
hyperventilate and keel over, but more importantly you will introduce tension into
your lips and that’s the opposite of what we want. Do this for approximately 45
seconds.

 Now tighten he lips and make car sounds, like children do when they play with
cars in other words brumm brumm sounds. Make these all over your register. Go
high and go low.

 With your lips nice and relaxed let’s move onto some plosives.

 First the unvoiced lip plosive – in other words P. start slowly and whisper the letter
P. increase the speed but remember to keep the P sharp. Now move onto the
letter B or the voiced lip plosive. Repeat the P exercise for the letter B.

 Again repeat the above exercise for the tongue plosive T & D.
Finish the routine with some tongue twisters from the list below. The trick with tongue
twisters is to be able to get your mouth around the words; speed is not necessarily
the most important aspect - clarity is what we are aiming for…

 Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Did peter piper pick a peck of
pickled peppers? If peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where’s the
peck of pickled peppers peter piper picked?

 She stood upon the balustraded balcony inexplicably mimicking him

hiccupping but amicably welcoming him in.

 Gig whip (say 6 times without any pause)